Around Place de la Kissaria

Place de la Kissaria, an open space surrounded by important public buildings, sits at the northern end of the souks area. Its north side is dominated by the Ben Youssef Mosque, successor to an original put up by the city’s Almoravid founders. The mosque was completely rebuilt under the Almohads, and several times since, so that the building you see today dates largely from the nineteenth century.

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The Almoravid koubba

The Almoravid koubba (Koubba Ba’adiyn) is just a small, two-storey kiosk, but as the only Almoravid building to survive intact in Morocco (excepting possibly a minaret in Tit near El Jadida), its style is at the root of all Moroccan architecture. Its motifs – such as pine cones, palms and acanthus leaves – appear again in later buildings such as the nearby Ben Youssef Medersa. The windows on each of the different sides became the classic shapes of Almohad and Merenid design – as did the merlons, the complex “ribs” on the outside of the dome, and the square and star-shaped octagon on the inside, which is itself repeated at each of its corners. It was probably just a small ablutions annexe to the Ben Youssef Mosque, but its architecture gives us our only clue as to what that mosque might originally have looked like.

Excavated only in 1952, the koubba had previously been covered over amid the many rebuildings of the Ben Youssef Mosque. It is well below today’s ground level, and you have to go down two flights of stairs to get to the level it was built at, now uncovered once again thanks to excavations. Once down there, you can also look around the attendant facilities, including a large water cistern, and remains of latrines and fountains for performing ablutions, much like those you will still find adjacent to many Moroccan mosques.

Ben Youssef Medersa

The Ben Youssef Medersa was a koranic school attached to the Ben Youssef Mosque, where students learned the Koran by rote, and is the most beautifully decorated building in Marrakesh, with lashings of classic Moroccan decor – zellij tiling, stucco plasterwork, carved cedarwood – all worked to the very highest standards.

Like most of its counterparts up in Fez, the Ben Youssef was a Merenid foundation, established by the “Black Sultan” Abou el Hassan (1331–49), but rebuilt in the 1560s, under the Saadians. As with the slightly later Saadian Tombs, no surface is left undecorated, and the overall quality of its craftsmanship, whether in carved wood, stuccowork or zellij tilework, is startling.

The central courtyard, its carved cedarwood lintels weathered almost flat on the most exposed side, is unusually large. Along two sides run wide, sturdy, columned arcades, which were probably used to supplement the space for teaching in the neighbouring mosque. Above them are some of the windows of the dormitory quarters, which are reached by stairs from the entry vestibule, and from which you can get an interesting perspective – and attempt to fathom how over eight hundred students were once housed in the building. One room is furnished as it would have been when in use.

At its far end, the court opens onto a prayer hall, where the decoration, mellowed on the outside with the city’s familiar pink tone, is at its best preserved and most elaborate, with a predominance of pine cone and palm motifs.